Rising temperatures this past weekend brought local residents welcome relief and a hint that the longest, coldest winter in recent memory could finally be over.

But the warmer weather was short-lived, with colder temperatures and scattered snow showers being ushered in Tuesday. And with temperatures expected to be in the 30s today in Canandaigua, the work of getting out from under this winter has just begun.

“It’s two seasons colliding,” said Joe Callaghan, owner of Allen Landscape and Maintenance. Callaghan and his South Bristol-based crew work all across the area, including along Canandaigua Lake, where last Wednesday the wind sent huge ice chunks crashing onto shore, damaging a boat house on East Lake Road.

Callaghan said last week that spring landscaping was two weeks behind schedule. Even as warmer days set in, the long, bitterly cold winter left the ground frozen, he said.

“We tried digging last week and the frost was at least 30 inches into the ground,” said Callaghan, who lives in Naples. Now, he needs to bring on extra crews to get caught up, he said.

Last Wednesday, Evelyn and Anthony Imperato on East Lake Road in Gorham witnessed something they have never seen before on the lake — certainly not since 1977, when they began living at least part of the year in the area known as Thompson Beach.

The ice off the lake started moving south and skimmed their breakwall. At first, the globs of ice were a few inches wide — and then they grew into huge chunks that formed solid mounds of ice that went flying down the lake.

“It was unreal,” said Evelyn. She and Anthony watched the phenomenon, which continued for more than an hour. The ice crashed into a neighboring boat house, which belongs to Shortsville native and former Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen. Evelyn said they reached Bredesen via email, informing him of the incident. He appreciated being informed and planned to contact his contractor to assess the damage, she said.

Meanwhile, recent signs of spring are sending people outdoors to clean up yards and prepare gardens for the much-anticipated spring and summer.

At Lakestone Family Farm on County Road 28 in Farmington, Patricia and Denis Lepel are busy getting ready for the farmers market season and their new Community Supported Agriculture program at their certified organic farm. Denis said that due to the long winter, they are concentrating on vegetables that can thrive in a shorter growing season, such as arugula, radishes, turnips and kale.

Patricia said the winter has been a costly one for many farms due to heating of greenhouses, especially with the high price of propane.

Nationally, experts in economics and finance are analyzing this winter’s effect. Hiring never succumbed to the freezing temperatures as much as economists had feared, according to the Associated Press. Revised figures show that 197,000 jobs were added in February and 144,000 in January — a combined 37,000 more than initially estimated. Other corners of the economy are emerging from hibernation. Auto sales, for example, rose 6 percent to 1.5 million vehicles in March after dismal figures the previous two months.

Page 2 of 2 - “It has been a tough winter for everybody,” said Gary Marble, general sales manager at Shepard Ford in Canandaigua.

But there was a silver lining for his car sales, he said. People were anxious to get out on those days when there wasn’t a snow storm, and sales began picking up in February, he said. Now, with spring getting toward the end of the model year, when selection is good and rebates high, Marble said he expects a very busy next few months.

Economists said hiring rebounded along with warmer weather in March. Some of the pickup in hiring could reflect a temporary bounce-back from the cold winter months, and it may not be immediately clear how much of the job growth will endure, experts said. Analysts forecast that employers added 195,000 jobs last month, according to a survey by FactSet. That would be the highest total in four months and up from 175,000 in February.